


Wookey Weekend

by DementedPixie



Series: Demented Pixie's Pros Fic [28]
Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22652932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DementedPixie/pseuds/DementedPixie
Summary: Bodie tells us the story of how he broke his arm.PLEASE DO NOT RE-POST THIS STORY ON ANY OTHER PLATFORM.
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Series: Demented Pixie's Pros Fic [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1264832
Kudos: 5





	Wookey Weekend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [srBDC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/srBDC/gifts).



> My name is Demented Pixie and I’m a Pros fan, but that hasn’t always been my name. If you knew me as In Love With Both and you’re a friend, then you’ll already know why I left the fandom some years back. But, hey, a girl can change her mind, and I have therefore decided to re-share my Professionals fanfiction on this amazing Archive – no changes, no improvements, no alterations. I’ll be posting them just as they were written. No comments, no trolls, and no betas. Just me and my stories. I’m sharing them so that they can take their place in the archive, but I’m also sharing them for the Pros generation, for those future generations yet to discover Bodie and Doyle, and for Sandra, who has never ceased waving pompoms for all Pros fanfiction writers.  
> The following story was written by me in 2012.

For Sandra  
With love from ILWB

Wookey Weekend

Nice place you’ve got here. Comfy. And it’s really good of you to ask me over. You know I’m on sick leave, well now Doyle’s gone back I’m at a bit of a loose end during the day. Oh, he’s fine and I’m much better, thanks for asking. If that’s a slice of Swiss Roll you’ve got to go with this cup of tea, then yes please. I can manage with one arm, thanks though. 

So you wanted to hear all about last weekend?

It was a terrible shame, really, because things had started off quite promisingly. Lucas and McCabe had suggested a weekend of country pursuits with a warm pub to stay in, after a couple of strenuous days caving in the Mendips. Me and Doyle were not exactly known for saying no to the odd weekend away so we’d taken the other lads up on their offer with barely a second thought. The drive South had been completed without incident, the bed and breakfast place offered all it had promised and it had even stopped raining. So what could possibly go wrong? 

I like Lucas and Mac. They’re fun to be around and don’t have a problem with me and Ray being, well, you know, a couple. So we can just relax and be ourselves. 

By the Saturday afternoon the four of us were working our way through the potholes and cave systems around Cheddar. I’m always amazed how grown men can squeeze themselves through tunnels that end up resembling little more than a drainpipe, as with hard hats on heads and rucksacks squashed on our backs we eased ourselves down the narrow corridors that nature had created in the rock. 

It didn’t surprise me that despite the claustrophobic conditions and complete lack of light, Doyle was fully aware of what I was getting up to behind him.

“You’re supposed to use that torch to light our way, not shine it at my arse,” he commented, as he wriggled along. 

“I’m trying to work out,” I replied, “if I shine it up your back side will light come out of your ears.”

Doyle paused for a moment as he tried to manoeuvre himself over the narrowest part of the tunnel section without cutting his knees on the rock. “Oh?” he said, completing the move successfully and with no small degree of grace, considering the circumstances. “And what have you discovered?”

“That your hair keeps getting in the way. So I can’t call it a proper experiment.” I started to wriggle forward with some difficulty. 

“It’s getting wider up here,” came McCabe’s voice from up ahead. 

“Thank God for that,” I muttered, as I inched forward on my stomach, trying to copy my partner’s graceful movements. 

“Wonder how far we are from Wookey Hole?” commented Doyle. 

“You don’t really want me to answer that,” I said, with a snort. Well, if he will make comments about holes then he deserves everything he gets. 

Doyle used his shoulders to ease himself out of the narrow channel ahead of me. “Priapismic,” I heard him mutter as he put all his effort in to the move, “bloody,” and then with one final heave he was finally free of the confining tunnel, “monster.” Scrabbling to his feet he turned and took a step back with his arms folded to watch me as I struggled to follow his lead. 

“Bloody hell,” I heard Lucas say, as he shone his torch around the cavern we had emerged into. 

I crawled the last few feet then rolled over onto my back to recover, content for now to look up at the shapes the torch was making on the ceiling. 

“Wow,” I said. It was beautiful.

The cavern was low; high enough for a man to stand and no more. Yet it was very wide – it reminded me of the low gravity defying curves of Maidenhead Bridge - with a narrow stream trickling through the middle. Not the Thames this time, I smiled to myself. Here, the constant flow of water over untold years had created a groove in the rock, either side of which was an impressive display of stalagmites in browns, golds and reds. 

As Mac’s torch flickered further away from us I looked up again to see Doyle reaching down to me. “Hand up?” he asked. 

“Yeah, cheers,” I said, taking his hand and immediately pulling hard so that Doyle came crashing down on top of me. 

“Bodie!” roared Doyle, trying to get free as we wrestled. 

“Big kids,” I heard Lucas tut as he and McCabe moved towards the other side of the cavern to explore further. And before anyone else could so much as breathe, all hell let loose. Of course I had no idea then what was going on. I didn’t know the local unscrupulous quarry owner was illegally setting off charges not far from the cave system. All I knew was that I needed to get close to Doyle – right now. 

It appeared my partner shared my thoughts. As the thunder of collapsing rock surrounded us Doyle curled himself around me, knocking his hard hat off as he hid his head in my chest just at the moment when the ceiling seemed determined to bury us. Well, at least we were going to go together. For a few years now I’d been worried about being left alive on my own, or leaving Ray the same way. My last sensible thought was that neither of us had to worry about that anymore. 

As they say in all the best tales – it all happened so fast. Within a matter of seconds our entire world had changed. We were both buried in rubble, my legs trapped within the collapsed tunnel that I hadn’t completely exited before I’d started wrestling with Doyle, and I had no idea where Lucas and McCabe were. 

Things weren’t meant to happen this way. Good men weren’t supposed to end up buried beneath hundreds of feet of rock. 

After a few stunned moments it finally occurred to me that I was apparently still alive enough to be pondering on the injustice of the situation. 

Still alive. 

I tried an experimental movement of my right hand, which, from the softness I could feel amongst the rubble, was caught up in Doyle’s curls. Instinctual self preservation had told him to bury his head on my chest as the world imploded and my hand had readily held him there. 

Okay, my fingers were still moving. No pain - so far. 

I tried opening my eyes. At least I think I did. It was hard to tell in the pitch black. 

“Ray?” My voice sounded more gravelly than the rock did. And I’m not ashamed to say my bottom lip trembled when I didn’t get an instant reply. 

And then I made a mistake – I tried to reach around my unconscious partner with my other arm. The pain was incredible and darkness came crashing down on me almost as quickly as the rocks, with me still not knowing if Ray was alright or not. 

********

“Bodie? Are you awake?”

Had I dreamed it all, then? Because, just for a few moments when I opened my eyes, there was light, Doyle was alive and right there in front of me and I didn’t hurt. It must have all been a dream, it was the only explanation. But then I moved – or tried to. The pain was...indescribable. And I’ve been in enough pain in my life to be able to describe it in quite some detail. I closed my eyes again.

“Bodie?” 

“What?” I admit I was snarling, but so would he be if his arm felt like it was on fire. 

“Look at me.”

I opened my eyes again, squinting into the very bright direct light that demanded my attention. 

“Turn it off,” I muttered.

“What?”

“The light.”

“Oh. Sorry, mate.” Doyle moved the torch and placed it on the floor away from my eyes. “Better?”

“Perfect,” I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. “Just brilliant.”

“Can you sit up?”

If he could then I could. With his arm around my back we managed to get me sat upright and leaning against the cool wall of the cavern, the achingly familiar feeling in my shoulder telling me exactly what I’d done to it. “Oh, no. Not again,” I groaned.

“What?” said Doyle, looking at me intently in the torchlight. 

“Dislocated my shoulder – again.”

“It’s worse than that.” He winced at me in sympathy. 

“Yeah?” I was surprised. Worse than a dislocated shoulder?”

“I think your arm’s broken as well. There was a tonne of rock on top of it.”

Memory came scrambling back into my brain, something didn’t seem right. I suddenly realised what it was. “My feet were caught.”

“I freed ‘em.”

Doyle had obviously been very busy during my nap. Preparing myself for yet more pain I started to wiggle my toes inside my boots, trying to judge what damage had been done. It wasn’t until the gentle movement reached my ankles and then my knees that I accepted I’d got away without further serious injury. 

“My legs are okay?”

“The miracle of DMs,” said Doyle. 

It was my turn to look at Doyle, my filthy dirty urchin of a partner. “You okay?” I asked, seeing how a thick trail of blood down the side of his forehead and face had clotted already. 

“Yeah,” he said, with a toothy grin. “Better than you.”

And then more memories came flooding back and I opened my eyes wide. “Lucas and McCabe?”

Doyle gave a small shake of his head. “Don’t know.”

“Shit.” I ran my good hand through my hair. Think, Bodie, think. “Okay,” I said, trying to pull myself together. “We need to get organised.”

“Oh yeah,” said Doyle, a hint of humour in his voice. “How’s that then?”

“Oxygen, food, water, rescue,” I ticked off the mental list. 

Doyle immediately took his rucksack off and started rummaging in it, laying the contents out on a large rock beside him. 

“Sandwiches, pork pie, water, flask of tea. Some plasters, headache tablets, car keys.” Then he stretched across to grab and line up the torches. “Two torches, one of which works.” With great care he helped me remove my now considerably flattened rucksack and started to go through that too. “Chocolate, spare pair of socks, more sandwiches, squashed angel cake, penknife, matches. Luckily you didn’t have a flask, it would have made a nice dent in your back.”

“Could’ve been worse then,” I commented, cradling my arm, gingerly.

“Why?”

“We could have already eaten the sandwiches before it happened. This way we get to ration them.”

Doyle had the penknife in his hand now and was reaching for my rucksack again. Fascinated, I watched as he cut off the shoulder loop and started to extend the adjustable fastening. “And that is...?” I asked.

“A sling,” he said, moving to kneel by my side. With a skill learned through dozens of first aid refresher courses and years of actions on the streets, he placed the strap over my good shoulder and fiddled with it until the contraption could take weight of my broken arm. I bit my lip, determined not to show him how much the movement hurt, but he’s no fool, my partner.

“You’ve gone white as a sheet,” he said, settling me back against the rock wall again. “That should help a bit. Sorry I hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me. A hundred tonnes of rock hurt me.” I was rewarded with an open, caring gaze, followed by a gentle kiss. I knew exactly how he felt. We’d survived – so far. The relief was intense. 

“Ray,” I said, looking again at the blood on his face. “Let me clean that lump on your head.”

“Sshhh.” Doyle put his hand up to silence me. “Listen.”

I tried to focus on the sound Doyle had heard but he was already scrambling to his feet. He grabbed the torch and made his way carefully to the far wall. I watched as he shone the torch over the pile of rubble that used to be the exit to the cavern. 

Then I heard it, the definite sound of distant, mumbling voices. 

“It’s them!” I said. “Can you hear what they’re saying?”

“Just about,” replied Doyle, as he pressed himself as close to the wall as possible. “Lucas!” he shouted. “Mac!” He turned back towards me, his expression confused. “I think they’re telling me to turn the torch off.”

“Do it, Ray. It means we’ll be able to see their beam coming through any gaps.”

As he plunged us both into darkness we concentrated hard. “Look up,” I said, calling Doyle’s attention to a tiny beam of light that was shining into the cavern from very high up in the wall of rubble. “You know what that means? Oxygen. At least we’ll be able to breathe.”

“And it means the lads are okay,” he replied, switching his torch back on. “And they can go for help.” He raised his voice. “Can you hear me?” he shouted. “Get help!”  
We listened carefully for the reply, which was muffled but reassuring. “They’re going,” he confirmed, before making his way back to me. 

“There’s something else,” I said, as he came to sit by my side. “Turn your torch off again.”

“Trying to get me on my own in the dark, eh?” he asked, but turned the torch off just the same. 

“Look up to the right,” I said. “I thought I wasn’t imagining it.”

High up in the ceiling was a small dot of natural light. Doyle immediately turned his torch back on and went to investigate. “That’s daylight,” he called as stepped over the stream to stand beneath the light source. 

“How wide?”

“Dunno. I’d get though, maybe, but you wouldn’t”

“Oye! I’m not that much bigger than you.”

“Idiot,” he said, turning back to look at me. “I just meant with your arm and shoulder.”

As always, I forgave him. “Can you see a way of getting up?”

“No, there’s no footholds and it’s too high. But if they threw a rope down, it might work.”

He picked his way back over the stream and returned to his seat by my side, leaning against my good shoulder. 

“Hanky,” I said.

He blinked and looked at me. “What?”

“In my pocket. Get my hanky out and soak it in the water.”

“What’s the magic word?” he said, getting tiredly to his feet again. 

“Porn.”

I know I saw him biting back a smile as he made his way over to the stream once more to soak the handkerchief in the frigid water. Then he returned back to his seat. “That’s it,” he said. “Next time you go.”

I knew there was something wrong. We hadn’t been trapped for so long that he should start getting this tired and as I took the hanky from him I turned to face him. 

“Sit still,” I instructed, then set about cleaning the blood from his face. 

“Ouch,” he complained, his face screwing up. 

“Don’t be such a baby,” I said, as I dabbed at what I could now see was a large cut on his temple. “Bloody hell, Ray,” I muttered. “Have you got a headache?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Oh, cheers,” I said. “Can you reach one of those plasters without getting up again?”

He did so, ripping the wrapping off and handing it to me. Sticking a plaster to someone when you’ve only got one hand to use is somewhat hard to do, so in the end we did it together. 

“Happy now?” he asked, closing his eyes and resting his head back against the rock. 

“Not happy, as such,” I replied. “No. Especially as I think we should turn the torch off to conserve it.”

“Yeah. Suppose we should,” he agreed, reaching to switch the button off. 

Plunged into darkness, the only light coming from the tiny gap in the ceiling, I put my arm around his shoulders and encouraged him to rest again me, which he did with a contented sigh.

“Talk to me, then,” he muttered.

“Eh?”

“I’m not meant to go to sleep if I’ve got concussion. So talk to me.”

Concussion, rather stupidly, hadn’t even crossed my mind. What the hell were we supposed to do if one of our injuries got worse? I couldn’t think about it. Perhaps Ray was right – talking was the answer. 

“What do you want to know?” I was sure he wouldn’t take advantage of the situation by getting me on a topic I wasn’t happy with.

“Why did you leave home so young?”

I was wrong. I couldn’t help the sigh, it just happened.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he quickly added.

“No, it’s okay. You’ve just never asked before.”

“You’ve never let me before.”

Fair enough. But where to start? I shouldn’t be worried, this was my partner and I trusted him with everything. So I tentatively said, “Home was...difficult.”

“I’m listening.”

Well that was a relief at least and it gave me the courage to continue. “It was nothing special. Mum was okay but we never had any money. Dad wasn’t, and he drank most of what we did have.”

There was a silence as Doyle processed this and he moved slightly, burrowing even further into my shoulder. 

“Didn’t you ever need to get away?” he asked. 

“Well, yeah. I ran away twice; once to me Gran’s, once as far as the park. But I wasn’t serious about it. I suppose I just wanted attention.”

“More attention was the last thing I wanted.”

I frowned. For some reason I’d always imagined Doyle to have a good childhood. “But you come from a big family, don’t you?”

“Why should that mean anything?”

“Well, you know. You had people around to look after you. I was on my own.”

“I might as well have been on my own,” he replied. “My Dad... hated me.”

“Oh, come on, Ray. Hate’s a strong word.”

“What do you know about it?” There was anger in his voice now. “You weren’t there. Yeah, it was a big family and I had a brother and three sisters. But the others, well, he liked the others. I was different. Arty, you know? He didn’t get me.”

Arty? Did that mean...? I had to ask. “He knew you were...gay?”

“He guessed. Caught me once, kissing a lad. Thrashed the life out of me.”

My arm tightened around his shoulders. 

“S’okay,” he muttered. 

“It’s not,” I said, firmly. 

“Did your Dad...?” Bless him, he sounded worried about me now. 

“Never touched me. Mum wouldn’t let him. Except... Well, she died. So I left.”

“Bloody hell, Bodie.”

It amazed me how the darkness gave us the courage to talk like this. In all the years we’ve been together this just wasn’t a subject we’d ever touched on. “Sorry I never told you. It’s not that I didn’t trust you, it’s just...”

“I know. I understand.”

And I knew he did. I pulled him as close to me as I could and buried my face in his hair. The one person in the whole world who I would trust with everything. 

And, lulled as we were into a false sense of security, we fell asleep together in the silent, dark cave. 

******

Stupid. So stupid. He’d already warned me that he wasn’t supposed to sleep if he had concussion. And now here we were, buried underground together, and once again I couldn’t rouse my partner. 

Laying him flat on the floor with the rucksack as a pillow I shone the torch into his face to check him over. His breathing was steady but he was out cold and I couldn’t get him to wake up. 

Struggling to my feet, I managed to get over to the stream to soak the handkerchief again and I flicked Doyle’s face with it, pretty desperate by now for a reaction of any kind.  
It was with no small sense of relief that I finally heard him groan. 

“Ray?” I put my hand on his cheek, needing the contact. 

“Bodie?” Grey eyes flickered open. “Don’t feel too good...”

“I know.” I grabbed the thermos and, by squeezing it between my knees, managed to get the lid off one handed. Then I poured him some tea and pushed two headache tablets between his lips. “Drink this,” I ordered, in a voice few would argue with. 

He lifted his head enough to sip at the still warm liquid and swallow the tablets then let his head fall back again, his eyelids still flickering. 

I checked my watch. We’d been asleep all night so the small beam of light coming in through the hole in the ceiling was the morning sun. As if confirming this, my stomach rumbled noisily and I reached for one of the packets of sandwiches. Help couldn’t be long in coming and we needed to keep our strength up. 

“Ray?” No answer so I tried again. “Doyle, stay awake.” I tapped his cheek in what I hoped was an irritating fashion. “Come on, you’re going to eat this if I have to force feed you.”  
He opened his eyes and mouth at the same time and I shoved a cheese sandwich between his lips. “Eat,” I ordered. 

Helping myself to the other sandwich, two of the painkillers and some of the tea, I sat back and looked my partner over. He could have died in the night and I would have slept right through it. As it was, his colour looked a little better now he was munching on the sandwich I’d given him. 

As I snapped two pieces off the bar of chocolate bar and handed him one, he rolled onto his side and tried to sit up. 

“Take it easy,” I said, putting my hand out to steady him.

“I’m okay,” he insisted, popping the chocolate into his mouth. “Aren’t we supposed to be rationing this?” he mumbled through the chocolate.

“One piece is rationing,” I said. “And they’re bound to find us soon. The lads know where we are.”

Giving truth to my statement that I could almost feel smug about, at that very moment a strong rope suddenly appeared through the small gap in the ceiling. 

“Stay there,” I ordered, putting my hand up to overrule any protest. Then I struggled to my feet to get to the rope. At the end of it was a carrier bag which I freed as soon as it landed, bringing the booty back to my partner so that together we could go through the contents. “No need for more rationing,” I said, the relief in my voice plain as I saw how much food they’d sent us. 

Doyle was unfolding a letter and reading it. “The lads are up top,” he confirmed. “But the hole’s too small to get us through. The rescue people are worried about widening it in case it causes another collapse.” He gestured towards the pile of supplies. “There should be a walkie talkie somewhere in there.”

“Not sure it’s going to work down here,” I commented, as I picked up the small unit and flicked the switch. As expected, all I got was static. 

“Oh, well,” said Doyle, with a shrug. “It says here we’re to move as far away from the opening as possible while they widen it. But I don’t see how we’re going to get you up there with your shoulder the way it is.”

“One problem at a time, Sunshine” I said, getting to my feet and helping Doyle to his. “Let’s move out of the way.”

Together we moved our meagre camp to the far wall and Doyle opened a new flask of piping hot coffee for us to drink while I unwrapped more sandwiches. 

“If in doubt, eat,” I said, offering Doyle his half. 

He took it, gifting me with a soft smile. “We’re going to get out of here, aren’t we?” he asked.

“Did you have any doubts?”

Of course he did, just like I did. We exchanged knowing looks then carried on with our second breakfast of the day while we waited for the rescue attempt to start. 

******

What’s really annoying about this story is that I can’t tell you how exactly we got out. It wasn’t long after we’d moved camp before work started and, although the lack of the walkie talkie meant we didn’t really know how things were going, we kept calm and cuddled up to each other for warmth. 

I tried to resist the temptation to jump every time a piece of rock was dislodged. Rubble and rock fell from the ceiling for about an hour before the opening was wide enough for a man to get through and then one of the rescue team came down the rope and was in the cavern with us. A quick medical check was followed by more equipment being sent down and then the guy strapped my arm and shoulder into a sling. Doyle insisted I be sent to the surface first and, to my intense embarrassment, the action of being strapped into the harness made me black out again. Trust me, it’s no fun moving around with a broken collar bone *and* a broken arm. After that I can only assume I was hauled up through the gap with the rescue team guy strapped around me, but I can’t tell you for sure. 

I didn’t wake up until we were both being loaded onto the helicopter, me on a stretcher and Doyle being helped on board by two of the rescue team. As I glimpsed out of the window I saw Lucas and McCabe standing nearby looking worried but relieved. It can’t have been much of a night for them either and I tried to signal to them with my good hand, to show them I was okay. 

The helicopter ride to hospital was the best bit! Actually, that’s not fair. The best bit of the whole experience was spending the night with my incredible partner and sharing parts of our lives that we’d previously kept secret. And knowing that the trust we have in each other is stronger than ever. 

And as the helicopter took off and Doyle reached from where he was strapped in to take hold of my good hand, I realised what a very lucky man I am. 

Sandra? You awake? Well I suppose I can’t blame you for dozing off, it is a long story and we did eat a lot of cake. Think I might just join you for an afternoon nap myself...


End file.
